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It was clearly a night for emotions. I didn’t know myself well enough at all. I couldn’t juggle all these emotions in the hopes it wasn’t going to affect me.

Wren was a ball of worry although he gave me an insight into who he was, which made me want to protect him even more than I already did.

“I think I’ll go home,” he whispered to me after we stayed out on the sofas, watching the flames in the fire pit begin to die out.

“I’m walking you,” I told him.

“You have a party to be at, you’re the team captain, it’s important for you to be seen,” he said.

He made a point, but I didn’t want to be with them. I wanted to be with him, even if it just meant walking him into town and walking back alone. I could do with the walk to help organize my thoughts into some sort of order. I knew I was in a position of responsibility and representation, and I really didn’t know if I could be a representation for the rainbow community as Julia had put it.

“I’m walking you home,” I said. “And also I want to know where you live so I can check in on you.”

“Check in on me?” he asked, wiping his face with the edge of his sleeve. “I’m sure you don’t need to do that.”

“It’s just something I want to do for y own peace of mind,” I told him. “And maybe I’d want to a tour.”

Wren shook his head and then nodded. “It’s a shared townhouse. They might be there.”

“They?”

“The people I live with. I don’t really speak to them, but they seem nice. I just—”

More and more clues to who Wren was. He was a hermit at heart, and here I was pulling him from his shell and forcing him to be front facing as the entire team and their friends met him. The renewed sense of awfulness filled my stomach once more. “Let’s grab you some cake and let’s go,” I said. “I’m not gonna have you missing out.” I’d tried the frosting earlier when Julia was out of the kitchen. It was to die for, and she would’ve probably smacked my hand with a spatula if she’d seen me go in the bowl with a spoon.

Usually at team events like these, especially those held at the house, I would be on my best behavior to speak to as many people as possible, encourage people to come to the games and even try and get them to make signs for me. Number ten. Tonight was very different, while I should’ve been hosting as captain, I was off, sneaking out through the front door with Wren’s arm hooked into mine.

Nobody noticed, and if they had, they didn’t say anything about it.

It felt oddly mischievous, sneaking out of the house.

We walked from the small sports village of houses together, arm in arm. One of my favorite things about Maplehaven was how walkable it was. It was probably to keep all the students from each having a car and congesting the streets.

“You can’t judge my room when you see it,” he said.

“I’d never judge,” I told him. “I just want to see it, so I know what I’m dealing with.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I mean, it’ll look weird if we don’t have sleepovers and stuff,” I said. “You know, just spit balling some ideas because I don’t want this to look like a stunt. And people know PR stunts, so we’ve got to make sure it looks real, because I guess maybe it feels real.” Once the words came out, there was no stopping them, I was admitting things to him, and I didn’t even know if he was registering the fact.

“My bed is not as big as yours, so you’d have to sleep on the floor if there was a sleepover at mine,” he said. “And at yours, we can top and tail, you know, you at one end, me at the other.”

“Top and tail,” I repeated with a big smirk. It had been a while since I’d heard that term. “Yeah. I guess we don’t really have to think much about that for a while though, do we?”

“You mentioned it first.”

I didn’t know what my mind was trying to do, but apparently, it was trying to get me and Wren in the same bed. “Tomorrow we’ve got training, and if you’re free, I’d love you to come and distract everyone.”

“Distract them?”

“Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out who posted that stuff online. I need to kind of see who might look at this like a stunt, which—I guess it is, even if there’s something here.”

On the sidewalk, we paused under a streetlight.

“I like you back,” Wren said. “But you said it yourself, you don’t know who you are or what you like. And that’s confusing to me.”

“I know, it’s confusing to me as well,” I told him. “Maybe you could help me learn more about myself.”

He hummed and nodded, as if mulling the thought over. “I suppose I could teach you about the community. But you’ve got make me a promise.”

“More promises?” I asked, already putting my pinky finger out for him.

“Not that kind of promise.”

“Ok, then what?”

“Promise me that this is something you actually want,” he said. “Because I don’t want to get hurt by you just telling me in the end that it’s a phase.”

In the back of my mind, I’d had these nagging thoughts for a long time already. I knew it wasn’t a phase, even if I’d tried phasing those thoughts out. They were part of me, I just needed to learn and understand what it all meant for me.

Wren lived near the main road in Maplehaven, which was a nice place to be. The townhouses looked amazing, and I was excited to see the inside of one. We kept quiet as we entered, but that didn’t stop us from walking right into the people he was living with. Two men and two women.

“Oh my god, I know you,” one of the guys said.

“Hi, this is Luke,” Wren said. “We’re just gonna head upstairs and then he’s leaving.”

It was brief, Wren’s anxious energy pulling me away from them. As we walked upstairs, I overheard them, hardly whispering as they spoke about me and the Orcas. They were all complimenting the team, which I took as a personal win.

“Ok,” Wren said, standing in front of a door. “So, this is my room. It’s boring.”

“I wanna see.”

“No judgement.”

“Absolutely zero judgements from me.”

The room was as he’d described it, a single bed, a suitcase in the middle of the floor with yarn sprawling out of it. There were stuffed teddies I assumed he’d made himself on his bed, and a couple of blankets.

“I’ve got some posters and stuff I want to put on the walls, and I really want to get one of those solar system lights because who even uses a ceiling light,” he said, sticking his tongue out in minor disgust.

“Well, now I guess I shouldn’t have kept mine on,” I said. “You know, I have a projector so I can watch movies on the ceiling, maybe something like that.”

He let out a tiny gasp. “Like maybe just a picture of the solar system, one of those high definition NASA ones.”

“I’ve never tried it, but sure,” I said. “I’ll send you the link to the one I got, and you could probably even see it in action the next time you come over.”

“Once you’re back in full-time training, I don’t think you’re gonna have much time to keep this up,” he said, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to help you and stuff, but we should probably keep this friendly.”

“Friendly,” I repeated. “Yeah.”

He was friend zoning me. I’d never been friend zoned before, I was usually the one putting people in the friend zone. I just smiled and nodded because what else was I supposed to do right in front of him, tell him that I liked him again. I didn’t want to come on strong, but I was coming on to him, I thought that was obvious.

“Oh, and the ice hockey fantasy draft picks start in two weeks,” he said. “It gives us two weeks before the season starts officially, so I’ll need to see where I am in the picking order, and I’ll be coming to the training because I want to see how the Orcas are shaping up before the first match.”

I could only nod at that point and do a little fist to hand snapping moment.

“You have any idea who I should pick, apart from you?” he asked.

“I’ll need to see which colleges first.” I wasn’t completely familiar with all the leagues, but I’d heard of the Ice Kings league, I’d seen the flyers around campus for it. “But I’ll help, you have my promise with that.” My stomach was now in a knot of nerves. It was still so unusual to feel this way.

“Perfect. Ok. So, I guess I’ll give you the real tour, and then I need to go to bed.”

And now he was kicking me out. I really couldn’t get a read on Wren at all now.

* * *

The locker room was full of talk about the party last night, and turned quickly to me. I didn’t know if they were going to express their thoughts about me as their captain, and give me more insight into the fucker who spread that shit about me on the internet, or if they were going to be glad that I wasn’t going to be replaced.

“Your boyfriend didn’t stay long,” Jamal said with a smirk.

“Yeah, first week back, probably exhausted,” I said.

“How long have you know you were gay?” Zachary “Zee” asked, sitting in one of the corner locker seats.

“I’m not gay, I’m just with a guy, I’m probably more bisexual than anything,” I told him, and the rest of the team that were listening. “You know, it’s probably not something I ever thought too much about.”

“Yeah, but you were getting girls every week,” Ryan aka “Tank” said from two seats beside me. “You’ve got to think about what they weren’t giving you, especially if this is the first public relationship you’re about to have.”

It wasn’t even a relationship, but if it was, it would be the first real one. “Sometimes, life works out like that,” I said. “But I hope I still have all of your support.” Quickly trying to glance around at all the team, excluding the freshmen joining us. I wanted to see responses. I needed to know who tried to snipe my position from me, and I hoped it wasn’t Ethan, aka “Snipes” who’d tried it.

“Kinda shitty that someone basically did that and you were forced to out yourself,” Liam, sitting beside me said. “I hope everyone else feels comfortable to be and do and say what they’re going through to the team. I’d never judge anyone and I hope they’d never judge me.”

“I’m straight, for what it’s worth,” Owen said. “I’ve been with Rayelle since our freshmen year. You’ve all met her.”

Before everyone could start announced their sexualities, Coach walked into the locker room with two others, the assistant coaches, one for defense, the other for offense, Robert and David. I’d long assumed they were together, but it wasn’t my place to even think about someone else’s sexuality.

“Our goaltending coach, Elena isn’t feeling too well, so we’re going into today’s training without her,” Coach said. “Robert will be taking defense, David our forwards, and goalies will be tasked with movement drills and lateral skating. I’ll be watching all of you on the ice, and I want by the end of practice for our A and B team to have a match, remember, it’s friendly fire, so don’t act like you’re like jackasses out there bodychecking each other. Got it.”

“Got it,” I said, my voice the loudest.

“And for what it’s worth, Luke is still your captain, regardless of what you saw on the internet, he’s always had this team’s interests at heart, and he has the full support of the coaching staff behind him,” Coach added. “Let’s give a hand for your captain.”

It was appreciated, but I knew someone among us didn’t have the team’s best interests. They wanted us to get bad press before the season had even began. Lucky for us, and for me, by name, we had Wren as our reporter, and he wasn’t going to let them ruin this make or break season for me.